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Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

rajk.me

41–50 of 441 posts

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#41

Reiterating the questions posed at the end, To what extent should personal ethics play in deciding where a (software) engineer should work? What if the engineer has no other choices for a job, and needs to (make rent/pay the bills/eat food)? It is true that it'd be pretty easy to circumvent the tracking, by placing paper over the webcam, running the browser in a virtual machine, spoofing data to the browser, and so o…

Well, obviously putting paper over the webcam would result in a FAIL grade for the test, so it's hardly that easy. Maybe you could record yourself staring intently at the screen and play that back to the webcam during the exam.

What happens if you have an old laptop like a Thinkpad T60 that doesn't have a camera?

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#42
Have you ever done lots of remote interviews in a big company?

The scamming is unbelievable. I've personally seen outright fraud... the guy in the video was a redhead with freckles, his name was an ethnic Vietnamese. Somehow they brought him in for an in-person interview, a Vietnamese dude shows up.

- Clueless. Guy was literally reading a manual.

- One guy offered me a bribe.

- one guy asked if his status as an illegal and conviction for hacking a phone company back home would effect things.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#43
As much as I would like to bash Amazon for their draconian and insane interview loops -- which I've been put through once.

The post clearly states these clauses were part of an exam taken on https://proctorio.com/ for the Amazon interview. So it's doubtful Amazon HR is fully aware of these clauses.

I would happily bash Amazon interview loops all day long, but in this particular case, I would also need to criticize anyone else that uses https://proctorio.com/ for these practices.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#44
post #7

Running it in a VM can bypass/block most of those restrictions.

Or you know, having another computer? I literally have 12 computers or phones in my house. Could I not use another one if I needed to cheat that badly?

You would have to disable the camera so they did not see you reading off of another screen.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#45
post #7

Running it in a VM can bypass/block most of those restrictions.

Or you know, having another computer? I literally have 12 computers or phones in my house. Could I not use another one if I needed to cheat that badly?

They may catch you if they replay

* Your webcam video

* Your head movements

* Your eye movements

* Your mouth movements

that was all collected during the test.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#47
post #7

Running it in a VM can bypass/block most of those restrictions.

Or just pull my old Ubuntu box out of the closet. No webcam, no mic, no problem.

Still, this is hilarious because only the truly desperate will put up with this crap, everyone else will just get their jobs somewhere else.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#49
post #27

> You will not be able to open any tabs or windows If I had to code purely from memory, without the benefit of language or library docs, I would not be able to write anything of use. Personally when hiring, I'm not interested in a candidate's memory recall, but the ability to use resources when faced with a new challenge.

Indeed. When I was interviewing candidates, one of my goals was to get the candidate to respond along the lines of "I don't know.", to which I would follow up with, how would you find out? No engineer knows everything. I also don't want a candidate that is going to try and bullshit me. Admit to me you don't know, but then tell me how you would rectify that. Google SO, MSDN, man pages, whatever, I don't care so long as you can admit you don't know and have an idea about how to correct that.

Personally, I'm doing mostly Python & C++ development at my new job (4 months in) after not using either for 2 years plus. I'm mostly fine with syntax for both, but constantly have my browser open for documentation, mostly for library related info.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#50
Anyone who has seen Adam Curtis' documentary, "The Trap," will find this familiar.

Our society has become so obsessed with quantification that we have become blind to any other ways of understanding the world around us, and made us poorer in our analysis, instead of being more informed with more information.

It is like saying that if something cannot be measured, then it does not exist.

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